I thought it was a lot worse than that... that most SSTO end up with negative payload fractions unless built with large quantities of unobtainium...

BUT if 66% is achievable(which I doubt), it might not be a bad idea to pursue this... NewSpace are teaching us that it's about cost, primarily, and a bigger rocket isn't necessarily more expensive in the long run

You have it backwards. That's a 66% (up to 71%) loss in payload over for a VTO SSTO Vs a VTO TSTO.

No I don't. I am saying a 66% loss is impressive and I doubt, based on nothing at all (IANARS), it's achievable. I would expect negative mass fractions or maybe a 98% loss or some such.

a 66% loss (in a fuel rich architecture) means that such a vehicle is worth pursueing.

« Last Edit: 01/15/2018 12:28 AM by Lar »

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"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

there was a topic on this issue on this site, but it get deleted because of our ultra intelligent moderation team. i am sure they were testing this type of vehicle since 2009. there was even a twitter-account dedicated to it in japanese. nihonjin friends were translating it time to time. anyone remember?

There was an interesting rumor that Mr Inatani, who was heavily involved with RVT work, is an advisor for Canon Electronics Inc. in some capacity, and that they were somehow involved with the avionics for the next RVT vehicle despite the MHI lead...

Mr Inatani also seems to have connection to SS-520-4 launch failure and the upcoming SS-520-5 launch attempt of which Canon Electronics Inc. is a part of along with JAXA's ISAS.